Bernie Sanders with the DemSoc 2-Step. Appeal to the success of countries with more government involvement in the economy to justify proposals that are totally without precedent among those other countries in their scope. Pretend they’re just proposing Canadian-style healthcare when called unrealistic.

The Vermont senator’s plan has lots of details about what single-payer would cover. It has less information on how to pay for it.

Sarah KliffApr 10, 2019, 11:00am EDT

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) reintroduced his plan Wednesday morning to transition the United States to a single-payer health care system, one where a single government-run plan provides insurance coverage to all Americans.

The Sanders plan envisions a future in which all Americans have health coverage and pay nothing out of pocket when they visit the doctor. His plan, the Medicare for All Act, describes a benefit package that is more generous than what other single-payer countries, like Canada, currently offer their residents and includes new income taxes on both employees and employers.

Sanders is reintroducing his plan at a moment when both American voters and Democratic legislators are increasingly backing a government-run health care system. Sanders will introduce his bill today with 14 cosponsors including presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).

The Sanders plan goes into great detail about the type of coverage Americans would receive. But it provides significantly less detail about how it would finance such a generous health care system. Instead, Sanders released a five-page paper that included a list of financing options, such as a new tax on “extreme wealth.”

Americans’ taxes would have to change to pay for this kind of proposal. But it’s impossible to tell who would pay significantly more for their coverage and who would pay less, and by how much. This is a crucial part of any health care plan, and in the Sanders proposal, it is notably absent.

So while the plan would move the American uninsured rate from around 8.8 percent to, in theory, nearly zero, it’s impossible to tell what it would take to get there and what the bigger economic picture would look like if we did.

The Sanders bill includes an exceptionally generous benefit package

Sanders’s single-payer proposal would create a universal Medicare program that covers all American residents in one government-run health plan.

It would bar employers from offering separate plans that compete with this new, government-run option. It would largely sunset Medicare and Medicaid, transitioning their enrollees into the new universal plan. It would, however, allow two existing health systems to continue to operate as they do now: the Veterans Affairs health system and the Indian Health Services.

Those who qualify for the new universal Medicare plan would get four years to transition into the new coverage. In the interim, they would have the option to buy into Medicare or another publicly run option that does not currently exist.

Eventually, though, they would all end up in the same plan, which includes an especially robust set of benefits. It would cover hospital visits, primary care, medical devices, lab services, maternity care, and prescription drugs as well as vision and dental benefits.

The biggest difference between this plan and the version Sanders introduced in 2017 is the addition of a long-term care benefit that would cover care for Americans with disability at home or in community settings. This benefit was also added into the House version of the Medicare-for-all bill earlier this year.

The plan is significantly more generous than the single-payer plans run by America’s peer countries. The Canadian health care system, for example, does not cover vision or dental care, prescription drugs, rehabilitative services, or home health services. Instead, two-thirds of Canadians take out private insurance policies to cover these benefits. The Netherlands has a similar set of benefits (it also excludes dental and vision care), as does Australia.

What’s more, the Sanders plan does not subject consumers to any out-of-pocket spending on health aside from prescriptions drugs. This means there would be no charge when you go to the doctor, no copayments when you visit the emergency room. All those services would be covered fully by the universal Medicare plan.

This, too, is out of line with many international single-payer systems, which often require some payment for seeking most services. Taiwan’s single-payer system charges patients when they visit the doctor or the hospital (although it includes an exemption for low-income patients). In Australia, people pay 15 percent of the cost of their visit with any specialty doctor.

The Sanders plan is more generous than the plans Americans currently receive at work, too. Most employer-sponsored plans last year had a deductible of more than $1,000. It is more generous than the current Medicare program, which covers Americans over 65 and has seniors pay 20 percent of their doctor visit costs even after they meet their deductibles.

Medicare, employer coverage, and these other countries show that nearly every insurance scheme we’re familiar with covers a smaller set of benefits with more out-of-pocket spending on the part of citizens. Private insurance plans often spring up to fill these gaps (in Canada, for example, vision and dental insurance is often sponsored by employers, much like in the United States).

The reason they went this way is clear: It’s cheaper to run a health plan with fewer benefits. The plan Sanders proposes has no analog among the single-payer systems that currently exist. By covering a more comprehensive set of benefits and asking no cost sharing of enrollees, it is likely to cost the government significantly more than programs other countries have adopted.

One of Sanders’s main arguments in favor of his health care bill is that American health spending is out of control and single-payer would rein it in.

“There is broad consensus — from conservative to progressive economists — that the Senate Medicare for All bill, as written, would result in substantial savings to the American people,” a paper released by his office argues.

There are certainly policies in the Sanders plan that would reduce American health care spending. For one, moving all Americans on to one health plan would reduce the administrative waste in our health care system in the long run.

American doctors spend lots of money dealing with insurers because there are thousands of them, each negotiating their own rate with every hospital and doctor. An appendectomy, for example, can cost anywhere from $1,529 to $186,955, depending on how good of a deal an insurer can get from a hospital.

That doesn’t happen in a single-payer system like the one Sanders proposes. Instead of dealing with dozens of insurers that set hundreds of prices, doctors only need to send bills to the federal government.

One 2003 article in the New England Journal of Medicine estimates that the United States spends twice as much on administrative costs as Canada. A 2011 study in the journal Health Affairs estimates American doctors spend four times as much dealing with insurance companies compared with Canada.

A single-payer health plan would have the authority to set one price for each service; an appendectomy, for example, would no longer vary so wildly from one hospital to another. Instead, the Sanders plan envisions using current Medicare rates as the new standard price for medical services in the United States.

Medicare typically has lower prices than those charged by private insurance plans that cover Americans under 65. This suggests that switching to the Medicare fee schedule would be another policy change that would tug health spending downward.

But there are forces in the Sanders plan that encourage higher health spending, too. Its robust benefit package with no cost sharing would likely lead to more doctor visits and hospital trips. As the classic RAND Health Insurance Experiment found, patients respond to lower cost sharing in health care by seeking more treatment. Some of that treatment is necessary, but other services provided are not.

And the Sanders bill would actually raise the prices currently paid by Medicaid, which covers about 50 million low-income Americans. Medicaid traditionally pays lower prices than Medicare and private insurance. If these patients were absorbed into the universal Medicare plan, their doctors would be paid more each time they were seen.

We haven’t seen a Congressional Budget Office score of the Sanders plan yet — and it’s hard to know how these countervailing forces (some pushing health spending up and others forcing it down) would interact with one another to change overall health costs.

The big question Sanders doesn’t answer: How do you pay for it?

The Sanders plan goes into great detail on what kind of coverage a universal plan ought to offer. But it does significantly less work explaining how this would be paid for. Instead, Sanders’s office released a paper that included this bullet-point list of possible options:

Creating a 4 percent income-based premium paid by employees, exempting the first $29,000 in income for a family of four

Imposing a 7.5 percent income-based premium paid by employers, exempting the first $2 million in payroll

Eliminating health tax expenditures

Making the federal income tax more progressive, including a marginal tax rate of up to 70 percent on those making above $10 million

Making the estate tax more progressive, including a 77 percent top rate on an inheritance above $1 billion

Establishing a tax on extreme wealth

Closing a tax-loophole that allows self-employed people to avoid paying certain taxes by creating an S corporation

Imposing a fee on large financial institution

Repealing corporate accounting gimmicks

The items on this list could no doubt be used to finance a national health care system. But eventually, someone is going to have to pick which items on this list become law — and that’s where things get tough.

Financing the health care system that Sanders envisions is an immense challenge. About half of the countries that attempt to build single-payer systems fail. That’s Harvard health economist William Hsiao’s estimate after working with about 10 governments in the past two decades. Whether he is in Taiwan, Cyprus, or Vermont, the process is roughly the same: Meet with legislators, draw up a plan, write legislation. Only half of those bills actually become law. The part where it collapses is, inevitably, when the country has to pay for it.

This is what happened when Sanders’s home state of Vermont attempted to create a single-payer plan in 2014. Much like Sanders, local legislators outlined a clear vision of the type of health plan they’d want to extend to all Vermonters. Their plan was arguably less ambitious; it did require patients to pay money when they went to the doctor.

But Vermont’s single-payer dream fell apart when the state figured out how much it would need to raise taxes to finance its new system. Vermont abandoned the government-run plan after finding it would need to increase payroll taxes by 11.5 percent and income tax by 9 percent.

It’s true — in Vermont and in the United States — that these increased taxes don’t necessarily mean overall health spending is rising. It’s entirely possible that health spending will go down as taxes go up, with Americans no longer spending billions on premiums for employer-sponsored coverage.

Single-payer systems change who pays for health care, often shifting more of the burden onto wealthier individuals to create a more progressive system. The proposed 9 percent income tax in Vermont, for example, would be far more expensive for the $100,000 worker than the $30,000 earner.

But who pays how much more is a key question this Sanders bill doesn’t answer yet. Until there is a version that does, we can’t know whether the health system the Vermont senator envisions could actually become reality.

I had a Bill Maher quote here. But fuck him for his white privelegy "joke".

Eh, the details of the plan don't worry me that much, to be honest, because we all know that they'll get hashed out and modified repeatedly and watered down in Congress long before they ever become law. What's more important, to me, is that Sanders (and some others on the Democratic side) will push for what every other developed nation has, and what we desperately need: Universal Health Care.

In fact, one could argue that it makes sense to propose a more ambitious plan than can actually be achieved, because whatever is proposed WILL get watered down on its way through Congress. Aim high, because you'll probably get half of what you asked for, at best.

"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxT8CM8XntA

Pretty much 9%...
Contributions are only taken from the first € 4,650 per month and are automatically deducted from your pay.
Employer pays the same, again, as his part of the share.

A minute's thought suggests that the very idea of this is stupid. A more detailed examination raises the possibility that it might be an answer to the question "how could the Germans win the war after the US gets involved?" - Captain Seafort, in a thread proposing a 1942 'D-Day' in Quiberon Bay

He's also been getting a certain amount of flack right now over "hypocrisy" because due to writing a bestselling book, he is now a member of the millionaire club.

"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxT8CM8XntA

I think the bigger concern is that he seems to have been dragging his feet to meet the norm but exclude 2008. In 2016 he promised to release only 7 years, which is below the norm and also conspicuously excludes 2008. Apparently some of his campaign filings from around then imply that there may have been something about his wife selling services to the campaign that would look really improper if he released it for the world to see.

Add to that his response to the criticism of the “millionaire” thing was to say that the publication was in the pocket of the Democratic donor class because of its connection with a big left-leaning think tank... from which he has hired two key aides. It’s not as if he is above implying someone’s wealth makes them a hypocrite.

And Bernie is being unfairly harmed by Biden being included in polls without declaring when Bernie also had been included in polls before he declared.

Member 2016 when I said Sanders couldn’t handle being treated like an actual candidate by the press? If his whining currently is any indication, he’s going to crash and burn unless everybody goes back to treating him like a protest candidate.

I had a Bill Maher quote here. But fuck him for his white privelegy "joke".

I think the bigger concern is that he seems to have been dragging his feet to meet the norm but exclude 2008. In 2016 he promised to release only 7 years, which is below the norm and also conspicuously excludes 2008. Apparently some of his campaign filings from around then imply that there may have been something about his wife selling services to the campaign that would look really improper if he released it for the world to see.

Its concerning, but I'm going to wait for something a bit more substantial before declaring him guilty. That's pretty vague innuendo at this point.

Add to that his response to the criticism of the “millionaire” thing was to say that the publication was in the pocket of the Democratic donor class because of its connection with a big left-leaning think tank... from which he has hired two key aides. It’s not as if he is above implying someone’s wealth makes them a hypocrite.

Huh? Source for this please.

And Bernie is being unfairly harmed by Biden being included in polls without declaring when Bernie also had been included in polls before he declared.

I mean, he's got a point. He's the front-runner, unless you count the guy who hasn't actually declared. That people were previously unfair in his favor doesn't change that.

Member 2016 when I said Sanders couldn’t handle being treated like an actual candidate by the press? If his whining currently is any indication, he’s going to crash and burn unless everybody goes back to treating him like a protest candidate.

Right, because everyone went so easy on Sanders in 2016, when they labeled him and all his supporters racist misogynists and accused him of supporting communist tyranny and racist border militias, and the Nevada DNC basically accused him of inciting terrorism/political violence.

The criticisms now may (in some cases) be more credible or less outlandish, but they are certainly not more vicious than what he was subjected to in the past.

"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxT8CM8XntA

Well, Bernie released his returns today. Aside from confirming his newly-minted millionaire status, reports are that they're pretty boring.

"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxT8CM8XntA

Which is probably to be expected. Everyone has been rather hard pressed to get some sort of scandal to attach to him. The best I'm hearing from conservatives is that he's been in Congress for too long, and someone with new ideas needs to run. Pointing out that he's the leader in bringing new ideas to the table does not make them happy.

"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxT8CM8XntA

Bernie Sanders’s Fox News town hall wasn’t a debate. Bernie won anyway.
Sanders was sincere with the audience, gracious to his Democratic opponents, and as prickly as ever to his Fox News hosts.
By Dara Linddara@vox.com Apr 15, 2019, 8:57pm EDT
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Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) participates in a Fox News town hall on April 15, 2019, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Mark Makela/Getty Images
Bernie Sanders’s Fox News town hall, which aired Monday night, showed that contrary to the belief of many of his detractors (and some of his supporters), the Vermont senator really does have more than one rhetorical mode.

There was the mode he used for the town hall part, and the mode he used for the Fox News part — represented by anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, who liberally interspersed questions from the audience with questions of their own.

When speaking directly to audience members or to the TV audience watching at home, Sanders was sincere and open. When asked about President Donald Trump, he spoke with emotion about how he hoped everyone could agree a “pathological liar” should not be president; in his closing statement, he practically begged for more comity in the country, without backing off his insistence that the rich need to do more to provide for working families.

When speaking to Baier and MacCallum, however — or, in a couple of moments, directly to the Fox News-watcher-in-chief — Sanders was as prickly as you’d expect. “The president watches your network a bit, right?” he needled. He hectored the hosts for making more money than he did. He huffed that he’d give fair answers only if asked fair questions.

The uncomfortable dynamic between Sanders and the hosts occasionally served to sharpen intellectual differences. Early in the hourlong town hall, Baier asked whether Sanders’s millionaire status (earned, he said, by the success of his recent book) proved that capitalism worked; Bernie tartly responded “no,” then, after a pause, launched into a mini-lecture about the obligation to ensure a minimum standard of living for the least wealthy in America.

More often, though, it was just uncomfortably tense. And that worked great for Sanders.

It was Bernie’s crowd — to the Fox anchors’ apparent dismay
For one thing, the audience was on his side.

After Sanders answered an audience question about why government-provided versus private-sector health care by outlining his health care proposal, Baier decided to poll the audience about it, asking people if they’d prefer it to their current, private-sector-provided health insurance. (That frame evokes Barack Obama’s famous promise that “If you like your healthcare, you can keep it” — something conservatives and Fox News frequently point to as a symbol of Obamacare’s broken promises.)

The poll ... did not go the way Baier appears to have thought it would.

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Bret Baier just polled the Bernie Town Hall audience who would be willing to switch to #MedicareForAll. It backfired spectacularly.

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It’s apparent that Fox didn’t stack the town hall with conservatives or people who hated Bernie Sanders; while the first questioner was a student organizer with the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, the second was a progressive organizer who’d campaigned for Hillary Clinton.

But Baier and MacCallum’s questions were often rooted in the conservative assumptions that a stereotypical Fox News viewer might have: that cutting the defense budget would “send a message” to other countries that the United States is weak, or that migrant asylum seekers “have to go somewhere” because there’s no room for them in border communities (and therefore, implicitly, that they should go to sanctuary cities). Sometimes, Sanders simply dodged them without any newsworthy gaffes or saying anything that Democratic primary voters might disagree with.

Sometimes, he fired right back and challenged the question. “Why are you so shocked by that?” he challenged MacCallum during a back-and-forth about paying for his health care proposal. When Baier characterized Sanders as a “staunch supporter of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar” during what was supposed to be a 15-second “lightning round,” Sanders spent at least 15 seconds rejecting the premise — “Hold it, hold it, hold it. I’ve talked to her about twice in my life” — before affirming that he supported the right of a “Muslim member of Congress not to be attacked every single day in outrageous, racist remarks.”

By the end of the town hall, audience members were booing the occasional Baier or MacCallum follow-up, even doing call-and-response with Sanders.

Maybe this proved the central point of Sanders’ campaign rhetoric: that the American people writ large, not just progressive Democrats, really do want the government to guarantee them a certain standard of living. Maybe it just proved that Sanders is a good politician who’s skilled at presenting his preferred policies in a way that sounds good to people.

Either way, Sanders looked like a frontrunner — which, if you look at the polls, is exactly what he is. Sanders lags behind former Vice President Joe Biden in some polls, but Biden hasn’t yet officially declared his candidacy; if Biden somehow decides not to run, polling experts say Sanders could inherit a big chunk of his supporters, making him the prohibitive favorite.

That’s a very unusual position for a politician who has won national fame by defining himself against other Democrats. And it’s an awkward fit with his gruffly persona. Sanders’s prickliness seems sensible when he’s punching up in the polls; but when there’s no one to punch up at, a combative attitude can come off as ungenerous or even bullying.

The Fox News hosts provided the perfect foil.

Sanders directed his irritations at them, giving the audience plenty of the authentic-seeming “Bernie from Brooklyn” without actually being irritated with any potential voters, and without saying anything negative about any of his fellow Democrats also running for the presidency. When MacCallum invited him to attack Biden as a centrist or South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg for suggesting Sanders might be too old, Sanders demurred — pointing out that Biden was a friend and that the primary was for voters to hear differences and make up their minds, or half-joking about his distant past as a long-distance runner.

The answer gave the impression of Sanders floating above the fray, frontrunner-style. But he wasn’t. He was fighting MacCallum and Fox News. And in the same way that one might win a debate — but not a typical town hall — he won.

I found his responses rather good, if sticking to his points. Watch it for yourself if you'd like:

Part 1:

Part 2:

The reporters seem a little flustered that the crowd is going with Bernie instead of them by the end of it.

"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxT8CM8XntA

I feel Buttigieg deserves more attention here, as well: the man has now announced officially as a candidate and has soared in the polls, surpassing O'Rourke and Harris to poll third behind Bernie and Biden in Iowa and New Hampshire.

If elected, he would be America's first openly gay President. He's young, and a bit lacking in political experience, but he appears to be taking Bernie's place as the newcomer/outsider who surpasses expectations.

"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxT8CM8XntA

(CNN)Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld announced Monday he is officially entering the race for president, becoming the first Republican to challenge President Donald Trump in the 2020 race.

"Ours is a nation built on courage, resilience, and independence. In these times of great political strife, when both major parties are entrenched in their 'win at all cost' battles, the voices of the American people are being ignored and our nation is suffering," Weld, who had previously formed an exploratory committee, said in a statement.

"It is time for patriotic men and women across our great nation to stand and plant a flag. It is time to return to the principles of Lincoln -- equality, dignity, and opportunity for all. There is no greater cause on earth than to preserve what truly makes America great. I am ready to lead that fight."

In 2016, Weld was the vice presidential nominee on the Libertarian Party ticket with former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson. He previously served two terms as the governor of Massachusetts in the early 1990s.

Weld ran for Senate in Massachusetts in 1996 and lost against John Kerry. He later moved to New York and in 2005 unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for governor.

Weld told CNN's Jake Tapper on "The Lead" that it would be a "political tragedy" and he would "fear for the Republic" if the country had six more years of Trump as President.

"I really think if we have six more years of the same stuff we've had out of the White House the last two years that would be a political tragedy, and I would fear for the Republic," he said.

"I would be ashamed of myself if I didn't raise my hand and run," he told Tapper.

Weld said he will not run as an Independent if he does not win the Republican nomination.

Trump enjoys a nearly 90% approval rating among Republicans, according to Gallup. When asked about the President's historically high approval rating and whether Weld believes he can beat him in the primary, Weld said, "Yeah, I do."

"Particularly in New Hampshire, where I'm spending a lot of time, it's one vote at a time and one voter at a time, and you gotta meet 'em," he said.

Weld described himself as a "Republican who works across the aisle and gets things done," and said he would have a "bipartisan Cabinet" if he won the presidency.

He said he is an economic conservative, adding that the US "deserves to have some fiscal restraint and conservatism and cutting spending in Washington, DC."

He added that he feels Trump "mocks the rule of law."

"I spent seven years in the Justice Department trying to keep the politics out of law enforcement, he's trying to put it in," Weld said.
He added: "He has difficulty conforming his conduct to the requirements of law. That's a ... serious matter in the Oval Office."

And, while Weld sees blame on both sides of the aisle for the divisiveness coming from Washington, he said Trump is the "grand master" of the problem.

"I've never seen such bitterness in this country," he said.

This story has been updated.

He has about as much chance of being President as I have of becoming King of England, but the more discord he can sow in Republican ranks, the better.

"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxT8CM8XntA

He has about as much chance of being President as I have of becoming King of England, but the more discord he can sow in Republican ranks, the better.

There are at least a few Republicans out there who mostly voted for Trump because he wasn't Hillary. Maybe, like... five... but nonetheless, I do think there are enough Republican voters that mostly support Trump because he's Party (TM) rather than out of regard for his personal qualities and because there's nobody else really vying for the position. If someone comes out punching strongly enough against Trump's personal and political flaws (blowing up, for example, how public perception of his tax bill has been largely negative), they could peel off enough voters in the primary to shake Trump's candidacy.

Trump has about an 89% approval rating with the Fascist Party of America (might as well call them what they are), and the leadership has pretty much denounced Weld's campaign and said "Nope, we're the party of Trump".

The most he can do is create enough discord that much of that 11% stays home or votes third party on election day. But given how close US races tend to be (in part due to Republican rigging), that could make the difference.

"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxT8CM8XntA

As noted in the Mueller thread, Elizabeth Warren has become the first Democratic Presidential nominee to endorse Trump's impeachment (Bernie, in an atypical display of centrist gutlessness, apparently dodged the question):

"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxT8CM8XntA

As noted in the Mueller thread, Elizabeth Warren has become the first Democratic Presidential nominee to endorse Trump's impeachment (Bernie, in an atypical display of centrist gutlessness, apparently dodged the question):

This might be the avenue for impeachment. Democratic Presidential candidates, especially those who are running on a highly progressive message, rely on the support of the progressive base in the primary much more than centrists in safe districts like Pelosi. They will feel the pressure to impeach- and as Presidential candidates, have an almost unrivaled platform from which to pressure their more cautious colleagues in the Congress.

Edit: Bottom line is, when multiple Presidential candidates, including one polling as high as Buttigieg, support something, it is longer a fringe position that the party bosses can ignore. It is something that they have to take seriously. They will have to answer to primary voters why they do or do not support impeachment.

"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxT8CM8XntA

WASHINGTON – Sen. Bernie Sanders finished ahead of Joe Biden in the first major national poll of the year that did not find the former vice president leading the pack of potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.

When asked whom they would support from a list of 20 candidates – including "someone else" – 29% named Sanders, and 24% named Biden in an Emerson College poll released Monday. They were trailed by South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who was the pick of 9% of likely Democratic primary voters.

California Sen. Kamala Harris and former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke each came in at 8%, and 7% picked Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro got 3%, as did entrepreneur Andrew Yang. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker got 2%, and the rest of the field got 1% or less.

"Biden has seen his support drop. In February, he led Sanders 27% to 17%, and in March, the two were tied at 26%. Now, Sanders has a 5-point lead," said Spencer Kimball, director of Emerson Polling.

"While still early in the nominating process, it looks like Mayor Pete (Buttigieg) is the candidate capturing voters’ imagination; the numbers had him at 0% in mid-February, 3% in March and now at 9% in April," Kimball noted.

The survey is the first of more than three dozen 2020 polls listed by RealClearPolitics dating back to October to show Sanders ahead of Biden, including the Emerson poll in March in which they tied.

In December, a poll by McLaughlin & Associates found Sanders with a 1-point lead, but RealClearPolitics does not include results from that firm.

The latest poll from Morning Consult – which posts updates on the 2020 Democratic race every week – indicates the Emerson result could be an outlier. Its survey, based on 12,550 interviews conducted from April 8-14, found Biden with 31% support among Democratic primary voters and Sanders with 23%. Harris finished third at 9%, followed by O'Rourke with 8% and Buttigieg with 7%.

The RealClearPolitics polling average shows Biden with a 9.3-percentage-point lead over Sanders.

In a head-to-head matchup with President Donald Trump, Biden still performed the best in the Emerson poll, leading the incumbent 53% to 47%. But that was a slide from the college's poll in March in which he topped Trump 55% to 45%.

Sanders edged out Trump 51% to 48%, and Harris tied him in a hypothetical matchup. The rest of the Democratic field trailed Trump, who had a 43% approval rating among respondents.

Trump leads former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld – who is his only challenger for the nomination – 85% to 15% among Republican primary voters.

The Emerson poll was conducted April 11-14 with a margin of error of plus or minus 5.2 percentage points.

"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxT8CM8XntA

"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxT8CM8XntA

I must say I was quite impressed by what I saw of Buttigieg. He seems to eschew sound bites and have the knowledge and integrity to give detailed policy answers. I do worry he might be a little lacking in the energy and charisma to be a good general election candidate on the campaign trail.

Also, Kamala Harris has joined the calls to begin impeachment proceedings.

"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxT8CM8XntA

I have seldom been more disappointed in Bernie than I am in his adopting the rhetoric of the Centrists on impeachment. To not impeach would be a gross dereliction of Congress's Constitutional duty, and I'm pretty sure I know why Bernie is taking this stance, aside from the fact that its not one of his main issues- because he suffers under, frankly, a delusion that he can win over large numbers of Trump voters in the Mid-West.

"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxT8CM8XntA

Wasn't that the argument for him after Clinton lost in 2016? That Sanders could have carried the "economically anxious" voters where Clinton couldn't. Evidently Sanders took that to heart.

"Oh no, oh yeah, tell me how can it be so fair
That we dying younger hiding from the police man over there
Just for breathing in the air they wanna leave me in the chair
Electric shocking body rocking beat streeting me to death"
- A.B. Original, Report to the Mist

"I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."
- George Carlin

Wasn't that the argument for him after Clinton lost in 2016? That Sanders could have carried the "economically anxious" voters where Clinton couldn't. Evidently Sanders took that to heart.

Yeah, but I think that the idea of Trump as a backlash to economic uncertainty was always overstated. Trump was, first and foremost, a backlash against the fear that women and minorities would supplant white men if allowed an equal role in society. It was about prejudice first and foremost, always. With an element of knee-jerk reaction against a vague "status quo", and personal hostility to Clinton.

"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxT8CM8XntA

"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxT8CM8XntA